Avid Reader: A Life [ebook free] by Robert Gottlieb (epub/mobi)

A spirited and revealing memoir by the most celebrated editor of his time

After editing The Columbia Review, staging plays at Cambridge, and a stint in the greeting-card department of Macy’s, Robert Gottlieb stumbled into a job at Simon and Schuster. By the time he left to run Alfred A. Knopf a dozen years later, he was the editor in chief, having discovered and editedCatch-22 and The American Way of Death, among other bestsellers. At Knopf, Gottlieb edited an astonishing list of authors, including Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Doris Lessing, John le Carré, Michael Crichton, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Graham, Robert Caro, Nora Ephron, and Bill Clinton–not to mention Bruno Bettelheim and Miss Piggy. In Avid Reader, Gottlieb writes with wit and candor about succeeding William Shawn as the editor of The New Yorker, and the challenges and satisfactions of running America’s preeminent magazine. Sixty years after joining Simon and Schuster, Gottlieb is still at it–editing, anthologizing, and, to his surprise, writing.

But this account of a life founded upon reading is about more than the arc of a singular career–one that also includes a lifelong involvement with the world of dance. It’s about transcendent friendships and collaborations, “elective affinities” and family, psychoanalysis and Bakelite purses, the alchemical relationship between writer and editor, the glory days of publishing, and–always–the sheer exhilaration of work.

“An exceptionally accomplished and influential editor and the author of numerous profiles and biographies, Gottlieb now tells his many-faceted life story with zest and precision, candor and humor, tracing his path to Simon & Schuster in 1955, and chronicling choice editorial adventures there and during his time at the helm of Knopf and The New Yorker. Gottlieb shares his heady experiences working with such literary standouts as Joseph Heller, Robert Caro, Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing and John le Carré, and tells incisive tales of helping the famous craft their memoirs, including Bill Clinton and National Book Award-winner Lauren Bacall . . . While book lovers will revel in Gottlieb’s intimate publishing revelations, his memoir is also a vital, generous, and captivating story of a life lived to the fullest.” ―Donna Seaman, Booklist [starred review]

Ebook4Expert remains free and takes me a lot of time to search for the best books available on the net and share them with you. If you find any value and joy in my work, please consider supporting with a single donation of your choosing, in any amount, between a cup of coffee or a good lunch, via PayPal or bitcoin (which I prefer because it has near-zero transaction fee)